.htaccess Support

Learning Focus

By the end of this lesson you will understand which .htaccess directives OpenLiteSpeed supports, when to use .htaccess versus native configuration, and common pitfalls.

What OpenLiteSpeed Supports

OpenLiteSpeed supports many common .htaccess directives, especially those used by popular PHP applications like WordPress, Laravel, and Drupal. This includes:

• Rewrite rules (RewriteEngine, RewriteRule, RewriteCond)
• Redirects (Redirect, RedirectMatch)
• Access control (Deny, Allow, Require)
• Headers (Header set, Header unset)
• Error documents (ErrorDocument)
• Index files (DirectoryIndex)

What May Not Work

Some Apache-specific directives have no equivalent or behave differently:

Directive	Support Level	Notes
RewriteRule	✅ Full	Core rewrite support
Redirect	✅ Full	Standard redirects
Header set	✅ Good	Most header operations
php_value / php_admin_value	⚠️ Partial	May not affect lsphp the same way
mod_deflate directives	⚠️ Limited	Use OLS compression settings instead
mod_security inline rules	❌ No	Configure ModSecurity at server level

.htaccess vs Native Configuration

Feature	.htaccess	Native OLS Config
Edit without reload	Yes — changes take effect on next request	No — requires graceful reload
Performance	Slightly slower (read on every request)	Faster (loaded once at start)
Portability	Works across Apache and OLS	OLS-specific
Audit clarity	Scattered across directories	Centralized in config files
Best for	App-managed rules (CMS, frameworks)	Server-managed rules

info

Compatibility does not mean you should put everything in .htaccess. Centralized native configuration is often easier to audit and reason about.

Common .htaccess Examples That Work on OLS

WordPress Permalink Rules

# Typical WordPress .htaccess
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

Force HTTPS Redirect

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

Deny Access to Sensitive Files

<FilesMatch "\.(env|ini|log|sh)$">
  Require all denied
</FilesMatch>

Troubleshooting .htaccess Issues

# Check if .htaccess is being read
# Enable rewrite logging temporarily in WebAdmin:
# Virtual Host → Rewrite → Log Level → set to a higher value

# Check the error log for rewrite processing
grep -i "rewrite" /usr/local/lsws/logs/error.log | tail -20

Key Takeaways

• Use .htaccess for portability when applications manage their own routing rules.
• Prefer native OLS configuration for server-managed rules — it is faster and easier to audit.
• Test .htaccess changes carefully — some Apache-only directives may silently fail.

What's Next

• Return to the Server Configuration overview for the full module map.